New Places, new friends!  Meet “Snappy” the star of today’s New Place. Snappy lives at the Anacostia Park Aquatic Resources Education Center where he entertains himself by terrifying dogs and small children. Lola was, shall we say, not amused when Snappy’s prehistoric head rose up from the depths of his aquarium to glare out of his window at us. Apparently Snappy has also moved small children to tears.

But Snappy is only one of the cool river critters we met today at the Aquatic Resources Education Center. They have a fantastic educational mission, and their rooms are filled with aquariums housing all kinds of animals that call the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers home. My favorite, other than Snappy, were the Atlantic eels. First lesson: there are eels in the Anacostia!  Second lesson: apparently these Atlantic eels travel from the Anacostia all the way to the Sargasso Sea to breed, joining all the other Atlantic eels who travel there from North America and Europe for a big party.  They (or their spawn, I’m not clear on that point) then come back home to the Anacostia. Those are some swinging eels!

We also had a great walk in Anacostia Park, a place I have been meaning to visit forever. It’s a long 5-mile sliver of green space stretched along the east bank of the Anacostia with a multi-use trail where we met every manner of walker, jogger, cyclist. Even a painter and a photographer were out on the banks of the river trying to capture the shifting shimmies of light and various grays.  We parked right behind a huge roller skating rink that, appropriately, was playing Aretha Franklin’s RESPECT on a repeating loop.

You know, today was a lesson in just getting off my butt and breaking out of my usual routine. I have been wanting to come to Anacostia Park forever, often peering at it from above as I crossed over the bridge. But I was always busy, on my way to a destination. Even today, although I had planned this outing several days ago, I woke up thinking how much easier it would be to just stay in our neighborhood, do our usual morning walk, and find a New Place closer to home. I’m glad I broke through the lethargy. And as we walked only about one mile of the five-mile park, stay tuned for Anacostia Park part II. And part III. . . . And part IV. . .